a month thereafter.

The truth is, that it was not altogether from admiration of the
accomplished Nat Boody that Reuben was prone to linger about the tavern
neighborhood. The spinster had so strongly and constantly impressed it
upon him that it was a low and vulgar and wicked place, that the boy,
growing vastly inquisitive in these years, was curious to find out what
shape the wickedness took; and as he walked by, sometimes at dusk, when
thoroughly infused with the last teachings of Miss Eliza, it seemed to
him that he might possibly catch a glimpse of the hoofs of some devil
(as he had seen devils pictured in an illustrated Milton) capering about
the doorway,--and if he had seen them, truth compels us to say that he
would have felt a strong inclination to follow them up, at a safe
distance, in order to see what kind of creatures might be wearing them.
But he was far more apt to see the lounging figure of the shoemaker from
down the street, or of Mr. Postmaster Troop, coming thither to have an
evening's chat about Vice-President Calhoun, or William Wirt and the
Anti-Masons. Or possibly, it might be, he would see the light heels of
Suke Boody, the pretty daughter of the tavern-keeper, who had been
pronounced by Phil Elderkin, who knew, (being a year his senior,) the
handsomest girl in the town. This might well be; for Suke was just
turned of fifteen, with pink arms and pink cheeks and blue eyes and a
great flock of brown hair: not very startling in her beauty on ordinary
days, when she appeared in a pinned-up quilted petticoat, and her curls
in papers, sweeping the tavern-steps; but of a Saturday afternoon, in
red and white calico, with the curls all streaming,--no wonder Phil
Elderkin, who was tall of his age, thought her handsome. So it happened
that the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in his furtive
observations, but encountering always either the rosy Suke, or "Scamp,"
(which was Nat's pet fighting-dog,) or the shoemaker, or the round-faced
Mr. Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt's charge of the
tavern wickedness only by distributing it over them all. And when, one
Sunday, Miss Suke appeared at meeting (where she rarely went) in hat all
aflame with ribbons, Reuben, sorely puzzled at the sight, says to his
Aunt Eliza,--

"Why didn't the sexton put her out?"

"Put her out!" says the spinster, horrified,--"what do you mean,
Reuben?"

"Isn't she wicked?" says he; "she came from the taver